urn:spookybaron:journal 2026-11-11T00:00:00.000Z urn:spookybaron:journal:the-helpdesk-horde-arrives 2026-11-11T00:00:00.000Z <p><em>Spooky Baron's What's New · Wednesday 11 November 2026</em></p> <p>A fourth game joined the others overnight. Helpdesk Horde is a survivors-style scramble: a crowd of problems heads your way, you fire off replies, and you try to last until home time. Closed tickets level you up. Each level lets you pick a skill, from a mail-merge trick to the oldest fix in the book, turning it off and on again.</p> <p><img src="/img/games/helpdesk-horde.webp" alt="Helpdesk Horde: one player, one building, and a queue that will not wait."></p> <p><em>Helpdesk Horde: one player, one building, and a queue that will not wait.</em></p> <p>By breakfast it had a cast, recorded voices and a trailer, and it is playable on the site next to Eddie vs Richie, Grok Snake and Cheeky Pete. The game cards also picked up faded screenshots, so you can see a scrap of each game before you press play. This log was brought up to date at the same time.</p> urn:spookybaron:journal:sheep-screens-and-a-site 2026-11-10T00:00:00.000Z <p><em>Spooky Baron's What's New · Tuesday 10 November 2026</em></p> <p>You are reading the day’s main event. The site went up in the morning with a home page, this log and the games. Eddie vs Richie, Grok Snake and Cheeky Pete all have a place to play. By the evening a redesign had added a Videos page and a Social page, so the films and the other channels sit beside the games.</p> <p>Two smaller video jobs landed as well. A 22-second cartoon argues that a logo looks like a sheep, which is a strange brief and a cheerful result. A Bigscreen tour was cut down to about two minutes. There was also a playful 1997-style page experiment, all starfields and bevelled windows, just for the fun of it.</p> urn:spookybaron:journal:bats-jumps-and-a-sunset 2026-11-09T00:00:00.000Z <p><em>Spooky Baron's What's New · Monday 9 November 2026</em></p> <p>Monday belonged to the games. Cheeky Pete and Grok Snake had a tidy-up: small clean-ups only, and the play itself did not change. One Snake quirk was spotted and left for later. An arrow key on the game-over screen starts a new run straight away, so a key you are already mashing can throw the results away.</p> <p>Eddie vs Richie got the bigger pass. A proper title screen, best of three rounds, a real bat swing, jumping, and a theme tune. It feels less like a test and more like a bout.</p> <p>In the evening a cartoon called “Speakerphone Steve” was drawn and given a voice. A small one, but it is in the same pile as the other shorts.</p> urn:spookybaron:journal:weekly 2026-11-08T00:00:00.000Z <p><em>Spooky Baron's What's New · week of 2 to 8 November 2026</em></p> <p>Monday to Wednesday were quiet. Then Thursday arrived and the making started again.</p> <p>The week’s prize is Eddie vs Richie. It began as 8-bit pose sheets, a cricket bat and a props list, and ended as a playable flat scrap: living room, damage numbers, and a chair having a bad time. You can play it on the site.</p> <p><img src="/journal/images/2026-11-08-3.png" alt="8-bit Eddie and Richie, cricket bat at the ready."></p> <p><em>8-bit Eddie and Richie, cricket bat at the ready.</em></p> <p><img src="/journal/images/2026-11-08-4.png" alt="Round one: a living-room scrap and an unlucky chair."></p> <p><em>Round one: a living-room scrap and an unlucky chair.</em></p> <p>Around the game, the videos kept coming. A code-only music short, three art-style tests, a finished coast drone reel, and two World of Warcraft shorts, including “Just One More Quest”. From this week the log itself slows to a weekly note, with the odd extra day when something ships.</p> <p><img src="/journal/images/2026-11-08-5.png" alt="Frames from “Just One More Quest”."></p> <p><em>Frames from “Just One More Quest”.</em></p> urn:spookybaron:journal:stick-figure-detective 2026-11-07T00:00:00.000Z <p><em>Spooky Baron's What's New · Saturday 7 November 2026</em></p> <p>A softer Saturday, spent looking at how a stick-figure film was put together. The pictures are simple: a farmer and an ox, a wooden ship, a desk and a manuscript. The movement is the interesting bit. The legs, the curtains and a hand with a candle all shift like short clips of animation, not like drawings tweened in code.</p> <p><img src="/journal/images/2026-11-07-1.png" alt="A stick-figure farmer, an ox and a plough under a cloudy sky."></p> <p><em>A stick-figure farmer, an ox and a plough under a cloudy sky.</em></p> <p><img src="/journal/images/2026-11-07-2.png" alt="A wooden ship on a calm sea, drawn in the same style."></p> <p><em>A wooden ship on a calm sea, drawn in the same style.</em></p> <p>That is useful for the cartoons. Still pictures first, a little motion on top, then a voice and a cut. The games had a day off. Eddie and Richie can wait until next week.</p> urn:spookybaron:journal:flat-scrap-friday 2026-11-06T00:00:00.000Z <p><em>Spooky Baron's What's New · Friday 6 November 2026</em></p> <p>Eddie vs Richie became a game you can actually play. It is a scrap in a flat: two fighters, a cricket bat, and whatever else is lying about. The title screen says it plainly. Hit each other with whatever you can grab.</p> <p><img src="/journal/images/2026-11-06-3.png" alt="The Eddie vs Richie title screen."></p> <p><em>The Eddie vs Richie title screen.</em></p> <p>The prop sheet is a kitchen raid. Kettle, pan, toaster, chair, bottle, ball, remote, pillow, and of course the bat. In play, the living room fills with damage numbers while the sofa pretends not to notice. It works on a phone too.</p> <p><img src="/journal/images/2026-11-06-2.png" alt="Props ready to throw: kettle, pan, toaster, chair and the bat."></p> <p><em>Props ready to throw: kettle, pan, toaster, chair and the bat.</em></p> <p><img src="/journal/images/2026-11-06-4.png" alt="A living-room scrap, with the bat, a chair and flying damage numbers."></p> <p><em>A living-room scrap, with the bat, a chair and flying damage numbers.</em></p> urn:spookybaron:journal:kettles-back-on 2026-11-05T00:00:00.000Z <p><em>Spooky Baron's What's New · Thursday 5 November 2026</em></p> <p>Thursday was a making day. A music video made only from code arrived first: paper-cut shapes, a skyline and a very large question on screen. The same gag was then tried in three looks, including a neon synthwave pass that feels like 1983.</p> <p><img src="/journal/images/2026-11-05-2.png" alt="A frame from the code-only music short, with the line “OH, YOU'RE NOT FINISHED?!”"></p> <p><em>A frame from the code-only music short, with the line “OH, YOU'RE NOT FINISHED?!”</em></p> <p><img src="/journal/images/2026-11-05-3.png" alt="The same moment redrawn in neon synthwave."></p> <p><em>The same moment redrawn in neon synthwave.</em></p> <p>On the video side, a coast drone reel was finished, plus two World of Warcraft shorts. And the flat scrap moved from drawings towards a game: Eddie and Richie, a kettle, and a camera that finally moves. More of that tomorrow.</p> urn:spookybaron:journal:calm-before-thursday 2026-11-04T00:00:00.000Z <p><em>Spooky Baron's What's New · Wednesday 4 November 2026</em></p> <p>One more quiet day. No fresh build of the games, and no new upload.</p> <p>Thursday is when things start moving again.</p> urn:spookybaron:journal:still-napping 2026-11-03T00:00:00.000Z <p><em>Spooky Baron's What's New · Tuesday 3 November 2026</em></p> <p>Still quiet. The games and the videos had the day off, and so did this log.</p> <p>See you when there is something to show.</p> urn:spookybaron:journal:kettle-off 2026-11-02T00:00:00.000Z <p><em>Spooky Baron's What's New · Monday 2 November 2026</em></p> <p>Monday was a pause. Eddie and Richie, Grok Snake and the cartoons all stayed where Thursday and Friday had left them.</p> <p>Nothing new to play or watch today.</p> urn:spookybaron:journal:lights-out 2026-11-01T00:00:00.000Z <p><em>Spooky Baron's What's New · Sunday 1 November 2026</em></p> <p>A quiet Sunday. No new game build and no new video to show. The snake, the puppets and the stick-figure tests from the week were left to sit.</p> <p>Back tomorrow.</p> urn:spookybaron:journal:seven-chandeliers 2026-10-31T00:00:00.000Z <p><em>Spooky Baron's What's New · Saturday 31 October 2026</em></p> <p>Halloween Saturday brought a small making project and a look at the videos. Spooky Baron designed a 3D-printed phone stand held up by two stick figures. Front, side and back all fit on one sheet, and the joke is that they never complain.</p> <p><img src="/journal/images/2026-10-31-1.png" alt="A phone stand held up by two stick figures, shown from the front, the side and the back."></p> <p><em>A phone stand held up by two stick figures, shown from the front, the side and the back.</em></p> <p>Luke’s Life on Film got a mention too: drone flights, 360 walks, 3D prints and the odd arcade. The stick-figure cartoons from Friday were split into a run of short clips, ready to post a few at a time. A draft channel description and a 30-second trailer script were written for Spooky Baron, ending on the obvious invitation to subscribe.</p> urn:spookybaron:journal:gas-man 2026-10-30T00:00:00.000Z <p><em>Spooky Baron's What's New · Friday 30 October 2026</em></p> <p>Friday’s video was a 35-second short, “The 2,000-Year-Old Computer”, in the same punchy style as the day before. It follows the story of an ancient geared device, from the moment it was found to a Greek inventor turning a handle. It went up in the morning.</p> <p><img src="/journal/images/2026-10-30-1.png" alt="Frames from “The 2,000-Year-Old Computer”: the opening line, the find in 1901, and a hand-cranked gadget."></p> <p><em>Frames from “The 2,000-Year-Old Computer”: the opening line, the find in 1901, and a hand-cranked gadget.</em></p> <p>The afternoon turned to cartoons. Stick-figure characters got a sheet of poses, including a scruffy one and a bald one with a cricket bat, which is where Eddie and Richie begin. A short coded test put the bat swing on screen. Silly, quick, and a sign of the game to come.</p> urn:spookybaron:journal:five-bots 2026-10-29T00:00:00.000Z <p><em>Spooky Baron's What's New · Thursday 29 October 2026</em></p> <p>A busy first day of making things in public. Two puppets, Tango and Skye, got voices of their own, and a short called “The Spare Arm” started to take shape. Another set of frames, “Oxford Is Older Than the Aztecs”, was cut in the same bright, simple style.</p> <p>The other new toy was a game. Grok Snake is a neon arcade snake: rainbow colours, a bit of speed, and the usual rule about not biting your own tail. Luke had a first playable version by the end of the day.</p> <p><img src="/journal/images/2026-10-29-6.png" alt="Grok Snake in play: a neon board, a rainbow tail, and the score climbing."></p> <p><em>Grok Snake in play: a neon board, a rainbow tail, and the score climbing.</em></p> <p>More shorts and a proper home for the games come later. This was the start.</p>